There is much that has been and still can be said of General Lee’s character. It is probably to the benefit of all modern readers that we explore and attempt to understand Lee, as our own era has more frequently been concerned with deconstructing the past rather than holding up honorable men to emulate and admire. Following a brief perusal...| Abbeville Institute
Originally published at Reckonin.com Introduction There is a vast and often contradictory literature describing and explaining the South. Various theories have been put forth to describe Southern distinctiveness. We might note that the greater part of this literature is written by outsiders who have found the South to be a problem—either the South was evil or it had by some...| Abbeville Institute
On this day (Oct. 12) marks the anniversary of the death of General Robert E. Lee CSA, Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. He graduated from West Point without a single demerit. He fought with high distinction & courage in The Mexican-American War. He served his nation as West Point Superintendent. Many of his cadets would go on to...| Abbeville Institute
A review of Larry A. McCluney, Jr., Paradox of Freedom: A History of Black Slaveholders in America (Scuppernong Press, 2025) While working several years ago, a Black friend informed me that she was taking her family to a reunion at a plantation in the Cane River area of Northwest Louisiana. As a longtime resident of north Louisiana, I understood something...| Abbeville Institute
Unsurprising it would be to find that many persons, decently familiar with Thomas Jefferson (and that includes Early American historians), were unaware that he had a brother. Biographers sometimes passingly mention Randolph early in a Jeffersonian biography inasmuch as Thomas, as the older brother, was saddled with the task of choosing between a tract of land on the Rivanna River...| Abbeville Institute
Dr. Carey Roberts presents the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization’s (AHI)18th Annual David Aldrich Nelson Lecture in Constitutional Jurisprudence on Constitution Day, September 17, 2025.| Abbeville Institute
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Mark 8:36| Abbeville Institute
I have been a big advocate for decentralized power, which in our American context has been connected to “states’ rights;” the most prominent period and example being the American Civil War, where the Southern states resisted centralized federal control and both fought for and applied to their Constitution a strong decentralized states’ rights policy.| Abbeville Institute
On a recent episode of The War Room (here) with Stephen K. Bannon the following exchange between Bannon and Mike Davis of the Article III Project took place. Davis is a constitutional lawyer and a very active and successful supporter of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, as is Bannon. The segment reference runs from 16:25 to 17:50 (transcript taken from closed captions).| Abbeville Institute
In the immortal words of the Declaration of Independence, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” When that consent is withdrawn—when the government becomes the destroyer, rather than the protector, of life, liberty, and property—then the people retain the right, indeed the duty, to dissolve the political bands which have connected them to the abusers.| Abbeville Institute
Today is John C. Calhoun’s 243 birthday. Several years ago, I took some time to visit John C. Calhoun’s grave in Charleston, SC., a massive stone monument at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church erected in the 1880s to honor the State’s greatest son. Calhoun’s body had been exhumed three times, once from Washington D.C. after he died in 1850 so it could be moved back to South Carolina, once to protect it from marauding Union soldiers during the War (he was placed in an unmarked grave), and...| Abbeville Institute
A review of Southern Story and Song: Country Music in the 20th Century (Shotwell, 2024) by Joseph R. Stromberg| Abbeville Institute
When most Americans think of the “First Thanksgiving,” they think of the Pilgrims in Plymouth who sat down for a Harvest Festival meal with the Wampanoag Indians in 1621. The Pilgrims had arrived on the Mayflower in November of 1620 and nearly a year later celebrated the abundance of provisions that God had provided. The Thanksgiving tradition recalls to memory Indians like Squanto (1580–1622) and Englishmen like William Bradford (1590–1657), who was elected governor in early 1621. Ma...| Abbeville Institute
The central issue of the 2024 election was the question, what is democracy? The Democrats in particular claimed that they were the defenders of “democracy.” They were sincere, although to their opponents this claim seemed the epitome of gaslighting. Their view is that democracy is top-down, whereby elite institutions (e.g., universities, foundations, the science establishment, big business, the media, government itself) use government power to formulate and impose the will of those ...| Abbeville Institute
Originally published at Truthscript.com| Abbeville Institute
Cities hustle and bustle, small towns hum. Six days out of seven in the little town where I live, you can hear the low rattle of log trucks playing hopscotch over potholes in county roads that haven’t been solid since Clinton was governor. The chug-a-chug of the Georgia Pacific train marks six o’clock on both ends of the day. And the sawmill whistles at us morning and noon like a camp cook calling folks to breakfast and lunch. But on Sundays the hum becomes hymns, and the only noise you h...| Abbeville Institute
Government, Thomas Jefferson all too frequently notes, is for the sake of the wellbeing of all citizens, each considered the political equal of all others and, in consequence, deserving of the same rights. Government, thus, exists for the sake of the wellbeing of all citizens, considered as individuals. Government, he often says, is of and for the people.| Abbeville Institute
It is common in Civil War circles to hear about the so-called “Lost Cause”, variously termed a myth or a narrative. Are those two terms synonymous? Let’s look. Dictionary.com defines myth as: “a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.”| Abbeville Institute
When speaking at Abbeville’s “The 1607 Project,” someone from the audience came to me, after my talk—and the Abbeville audience was electric!—and said, “You really mean what you say.” It was a curious sentiment, for by implication, I could conclude that many speakers at that or other conferences merely go about the business of public speaking without investing personally in their words—that is, without regard for authenticity.| Abbeville Institute
There is an old saying that rejects not only the concept of the “randomness” of history but of mankind’s involvement in that history. It identifies situations addressing external forces acting on human beings and in so doing influencing history itself. This maxim states that, “Man proposes but God disposes.” For there is overwhelming evidence of the existence of something other than the activities of men or the workings of random happenstance that validate this belief even by those ...| Abbeville Institute
Julia Winston Ivey, on September 15, 2020, quietly passed away at her house on Parkland Drive in Lynchburg, Virginia. She was a remarkable musical talent, an internationally lauded pianist in her prime years, yet her death created only a small stir in Hill City and her funeral, at her gravesite, was sparsely attended. The irony of her hushed passing is that she was very likely the largest musical talent that Lynchburg has ever seen.| Abbeville Institute
Dickey Betts died. If you need to read a biographical tribute, turn elsewhere. While there are plenty of cookie-cutter articles about Dickey Betts all over the place, the perspective found here is from a fellow musician, a fellow guitarist, and a fellow Southerner who never met Dickey Betts or ever even saw him perform. But, oh, what an influence he had on me!| Abbeville Institute
If you’re in need of a last-minute Christmas gift for that Dixian or Copperhead on your nice list, or even for (or more especially for) that Yankee on your naughty list, look no further. R…| Dissident Mama
